Alder Branch National (Championship and par 3)

[albinobluesheep]

Stadium Design Contest/Rookie course submission

Course: Alder Branch National
Par 72
White: 6,907, Blue: 7,338, Black: 7,567
Greens designed and published at 11.6/161
Default Time of day: 8:45

Course set-up Notes: Not recommended to use Pins 2 or 4 for Rounds set at Dawn (earlier than default time). Green area on hole 13 will be in full shade, 2nd green has pins 1 and 3)

Notes from the designer: This is my 2nd "Original" course that I've published, but the 1st normal 18 hole routing, and I had a lot of fun building it.
Please, please please give me feed back. Tear it apart. Tell me what worked and what didn't, what was an obvious error. Feel free to ask me what the hell I was thinking on any given shot/hole/pin and I'll try to answer. Working in a vacuum as a new designer likely resulted in a few odd choices (boat-stands included)

Full Imgur album

View from the 3rd Green, with the 2nd fairway on the left


Airborne view of the par 5 5th hole


Looking back from the 7th green as well as up the 13th Fairway


Par 4 12th, below the primary concessions area. 


Par-5 18th


Bonus, the 9-hole par-3 course on property is available to play under "Alder Branch Par 3" "Alder Branch Pitch N'Putt"

Also, shout out to Trent Ryan's character for playing this course a LOT and helping me find where the miss hits will land, and giving me lots of "random" spots to hit from for the photos.

[sandgroper]

Hey albinobluesheep, I really enjoyed this.
There were a couple of sculpting issues, but nothing that would stop it from being enjoyed.




I also had a rip around the par 3 course which was going well until I came to the ninth green on pin set 4...

[albinobluesheep]

Sept 25, 2024 19:37:21 GMT -5 sandgroper said:

Hey albinobluesheep , I really enjoyed this.

Glad I seem to have found the sweet spot on the difficulty. You probably beat my own course record by a few strokes, purely on your putting, and I built the damn greens!

I did have a grand smile on my face when you threw one OB on 16.

Sept 25, 2024 19:37:21 GMT -5 sandgroper said:

There were a couple of sculpting issues,

I may have bit off more than I could chew on the bunker work on 4! Live and learn. 

Sept 25, 2024 19:37:21 GMT -5 sandgroper said:

I also had a rip around the par 3 course which was going well until I came to the ninth green on pin set 4...

welp, that's what I get for speed building that one, thought I hit all the greens with enough flattening to avoid that! Wasn't totally committed to my process there. (keen eye will notice that all the greens on the par 3 course are default shapes) 

Admittedly, the par 3 course was something I finalized yesterday/today (been on the property for months, but with out much sculpting) and clearly wasn't checking every pin for being "legal" and seem to have missed that one.

Glad you enjoyed your other 26 holes!

Edit: republished the par 3 course as "Alder Branch Pitch N'Putt" with a fixed pin #4, which I assume wont be considered by the competition anyway

[bauer1993]

I actually thought the boat stands were hilarious..

I agree on sculpting, the bunker sculpting was bath tub like, and the sculpting around the greens was either extreme or really flat, no in between. Just needs a lot more of the soft flatten brush, I think alot of the green shapes and bunker positions were solid.

I think bunker scaling was a bit of an issue too -- I normally don't like really large bunkers, if you do them then I think they have to be really carefully done. Look at how Catalouya Hunt Club did their's. I find that it just makes the course feel unrealistic-- no greens crew is maintaining that much sand.

Finally, I think there was too many similar green complexes -- mainly elevated ones surrounded by bunkers. A few sunken greens or a green requiring a run up shot mixed in would've helped.

Really good work though given it sounds like you don't do this very often! My first original build in 2k23 was terrible lol.

[albinobluesheep]

Sept 25, 2024 21:47:15 GMT -5 bauer1993 said:

I think bunker scaling was a bit of an issue too

Good to know I still missed that mark a bit. That was a constant struggle. I need to get better about pulling out the measure tool to see how deep they are. I wish there was an option way to have a little transparent and to-scale golfer hovering around your curser just to get a better idea of how big things are. I was constantly going way too big and having to scale way back because I kept getting tunnel vision and losing track how how big things actually were!

Same thing with the grass, I wasted a half hour one day planting a swath of grass that was all 8 feet tall, didn't notice until I went and hit a few balls near it.

[sandgroper]

Try putting a car in the bunker to see it's relative size and depth. Just remember to remove it before publish! lol